Standing In Her Line Of Fire
by A Trashbag Writes
Summary: "Shepard, sweetie, love of my life...Tell me you didn't." But she did. And Shepard doesn't quite know just how to tell him after all these years. You see, no one's ever been better at bottle-shooting than her, not even Archangel. [T for language]


Hope you enjoy! My first ME fic...An exploration of their relationship mixed with a little bit of 'what-if'...

* * *

_It's been five years since the war ended; two since Grunt had caught the two of them- Shepard and Garrus- trying to steal off to their special spot on the Citadel, hijacked it, and somehow turned it into a popular spot for the entire crew to meet and shoot it out on a regular basis._

_Not that any of them are, strictly speaking, supposed to be there, of course; especially not for things like bottle-shooting matches. But whenever they're about to run into trouble, either the other thousand pressing issues of rebuilding after the war or the simple threat of a disgruntled group of two Krogan, two Asari, a Quarian, a Turian, and many, many powerful human biotics is enough to keep C-sec off of their back. Well, it's either that or their status as the heroes of the galaxy anyway._

_The point is, nobody gives them any trouble. In fact, after it had become known that this was a favorite spot of the legendary Normandy crew, the council had been so kind as to install an elevator leading straight to their special spot, complete with a newly constructed shooting deck, top-notch security, and plenty of places to sit and talk and lounge. And sure, going there doesn't give them quite the same thrill as when they had to shoot and run before they got caught, but Garrus has to admit, this is pretty nice too. Because really, it's the least the council can do after everything **she** has had to go through._

_But those are thoughts for another time.  
At present, Garrus has somewhere to be and urgent matters to attend to.  
He treads lightly but quickly towards the Presidium, steps into the nearest elevator, and prods at the button with the arrow that points up. All of a sudden, the elevator soars upward and with a nervous energy, he waits.  
He fiddles with the clasp of his armor and finds himself humming "Fire in the Courtyard" under his breath to get his mind set in the right mood.  
He can't help it if he's a little on edge.  
It's been far too long since the last time he's done this.  
_

_Ding!  
__The door finally slides open and he is greeted by the distinct, warbling woosh! of a near-passing skycar.  
Every time, the view takes his breath away. _

_And there, there she is.  
The woman that shouldered an entire universe's worth of troubles on her back and somehow managed to fix them all._

_**The** hero: a legend, an icon, a damned celebrity, but to him, she remains simply...Shepherd._

_'Simply Shepherd' however, is too preoccupied to notice the arrival of her incredibly handsome turian boyfriend and frankly, it's starting to sting just a little bit._

_With a mischevious glint in his eyes, Garrus takes a step towards her, ready to give her a small fright_, _but then, his eyes rest on the empty spent thermal clips littered all over the floor and he realizes that she has already started without him._

_A double offense then by the love of his life, he thinks to himself with feigned shock._

_He watches as Miranda Lawson, lounging comfortably on a bench nearby, rolls her eyes and makes a cutting remark to Jack who just laughs crassly._  
_Shephard's lips move rapidly as she answers, and then, both Jack and Miranda are looking at each other with equally horrified expressions on their faces as Tali and Liara look on in amusement._

_He edges a little closer._

_"Not this again? Ugh. Shepard..."_  
_Miranda wrinkles her nose distastefully._  
_"You have got to be f-...kidding me." Jack adds._

_And Miranda lifts a perfectly arched brow at that._  
_"Oh? No f-bombs, 'shits', or 'bullshits'? Teaching really has changed you, it seems."_  
_"Old habbit." Jack mutters. Then, she suddenly gives a devious grin. "But for old times sake, I might be able to slip up just this once. So hey, cheerleader. Go fuc-_

_"Alright, alright. Enough with the flirting, you two." Shepard laughs. "Come on. It's my turn."  
The others laugh as Miranda and Jack grimace once again._

_And then, Garrus watches as Jack follows Shepard to the edge._  
_"You ready?" the tattooed human asks._  
_Shepard nods and then hoists her rifle up in preparation._

_And Garrus can feel himself smile because he knows from experience that this is a shot that she will miss. He is sure. He's seen it before._  
_But then, he hears the sound of the trigger followed by the loud crack of exploding glass and his mandibles flare in mild wonder as bits of broken glass rain down hundreds of feet into the Presidium lake.  
_  
_"Not bad, Shepard!" Jack shouts, over the noise of the skycars. She laughs then. "But let's actually try a challenging one this time!"_  
_"Oh, please. We both know that's the farthest you can throw."_  
_Jack smirks. "We'll see about that."_  
_The next thing he knows, another glass bottle is floating just a few centimeters above Jack's hand and enveloped in a light blue glow._  
_"Hey. Now that's cheating." Shepard protests._  
_But Jack just grins._  
_"Take your best shot, Shepard. Ready?"  
_  
_Shepard lifts her rifle with a smile and says, "Let's do it!"_  
_And Garrus is sure. This time, he's **positive-** that she will miss. Not even he could hit the target of whatever complicated maneveur Jack was about to put that bottle through._  
_  
And sure enough, the bottle flies in a series of strange loops before it goes hurling through the air, an impossible distance away.  
_  
_Yep. This one is definitely a lost cause, Garrus thinks to himself with satisfaction._  
_  
But after a few seconds of silence, there is another short blast, followed once again by the sound of shattered shards of an empty brandy bottle._

_"Well, shit." Jack says, with a thinly veiled impressed grin. "When was the last time you and Garrus had it out? Cause he's been calling himself king of the bottle shooters for a good couple of years now but even he couldn't pull off shit like that."  
__"Speaking of Garrus, he's bound to be here soon. Perhaps it'd be better for you to keep quiet." Liara says._

_Shepard laughs and then brushes a stray strand of her shoulder-length hair away from her eyes as she descends the steps, rifle still in tow._

_And she is still laughing when she catches the first glimpse of his feet.  
But then, her eyes wander upward and she sees the wounded puppy dog look he gives her and she stops mid-step._

_A sheepish expression crosses her face.  
She knows she's been caught, but Garrus is still reeling from the shock of it all._

_"I, uh...guess you saw all of that, eh, Vakarian?" she ventures cautiously._

* * *

The thing that surprises him, even though he knows by now that it shouldn't, is the fact that when Shepard dies, it's for one of them; a member of her crew.

A countless number of bullets have been aimed at her, grenades, missiles, bombs...

Tough as she is, relentless as she is, the world always thought that when she died, it would be in a great, fantastic showdown between her and the ultimate bad, a tale for the ages, something that the whole entire galaxy could marvel at and idolize her for.

But when the time really comes, it's just Joker who takes her down: the cripple, the handicap, the incapacitated pilot of the damned ship- not that Garrus has anything against Joker personally, of course. But he knows that to the world, it would seem almost laughable that such an important woman who had survived so much would get taken down that easily and for someone who everyone else would think was so insignificant.

But that is who Shepard is, or who she had been, anyway.  
Every life on her ship had counted for something, _**meant **_something to her, no matter the rest of the galaxy's bias.  
And so, Joker? Well, as sarcastic as he could be at times, he was still the Normandy's- no, he was still Shepard's pilot and his life had counted for everything, too.

And so that is how it happens.  
That is how it all ends.

And Shepard is declared dead and the crew falls apart and the world starts to move on, forgetting all about everything she'd fought so hard to preserve.

* * *

For a long time, nothing seems to matter.

It's unjust. It's a thousand different kinds of not-fair.

But Garrus Vakarian can't fight it.  
And it kills him because he's never been able to do anything about the wrong in the world, but this time, it isn't just about C-sec regulations tying him down when he is just inches from catching a mad murderer or a thief. It's about the fact that she, Shepard, the heart of the crew, the immovable center, had been lost right before all of their very eyes. And he couldn't do anything but watch from a distance.

So for two years, Garrus loses himself instead in fighting the wrong that he does have the power to change.  
And he fights like hell, throwing himself into his work with a fervor and focus that he only now understands was Shepard's burden.

Only, time goes by, and he finds that he'll never be her. If he puts everything, absolutely every last piece of him and everything he has, into what he does, then he can just barely pretend that he is half the leader she used to be. And there are people who will follow him, but not quite to hell and back. And he doesn't quite have the ability to lead people into that line of fire and then get them all to safety afterward. He shakes and stumbles and everything he touches, everything he tries to save, crumbles.

And he can only continue on anyway and try to echo the greatness of her actions and pretend that is enough to keep her alive; somewhere...

And then it happens. All of his mistakes and missteps lead him here.  
Time is running out. The world is collapsing in on him and he is all alone and in an hour, he'll be dead.

He wonders if this is how Shepard felt in the beginning, with no one by her side who could truly understand the burden, the responsibility that everyone (even himself, he realizes with some shame) had pushed onto her when they could turn to no one else.

And yet she never gave up...

Solemnly, he takes his rifle up for one last kill before he is certain that the mercs will burst through the back door and end him for good.

But then, he peers through the scope.  
He sees it.

A figure wearing the latest, high-tech armor with...a somewhat sloppy 'N7' painted onto it, obviously by hand.

The person's face is obscured by a helmet, but they're tailed by none other than a salarian and a rough, tough looking human with a bad eye.

They're a rag-tag group of misfits if he ever saw one and Garrus knows, or he hopes at least, that there is only one person that could get a group like that to follow them through this hell of a mission.  
He knows it's impossible. He knows.

But he hopes.

And that hope is what carries him against all odds, all the way to this moment;

"Archangel?"

He hears that voice, and suddenly, nothing else matters.

* * *

"Hell, Garrus, you were always ugly. Slap some face paint on it and no one will even notice."

He laughs at that, trying to hide the ruthless edge that has unknowingly formed in his tone over the years. He wants her to remember him exactly as he was. Because, back then, he could have become something so much more than what he is now...

But it is harder to hide than he thought.

And everything has been going wrong, wrong, wrong since he'd heard she had died.

The ghosts still haunt him.  
But with her, not dead, **_alive_**, he thinks to himself with some relief that at least there is one less ghost to haunt him now.

* * *

She tries to stop him.  
He argues the whole way.

But even with her head caught in the crosshairs and his finger on the trigger, she persists.

"He's not alive. There's nothing left to kill."

Among everything else, those words are the ones that stop him short. Because that is the moment that Garrus first starts to realize.

Sidonis, to him, is nothing more than a traitor.  
Even with him standing right there, all Garrus sees is a coward and a villain. He misses all the little things that Shepard does not; the weak voice, the haggard appearance, the empty eyes.

Because she can't see the world the way he can, in shades of black and white or even grey or anything else, really.

In order to lead it, in order to save it, she has to see it only for exactly the terrible, cruel, hopeless thing that it is.

She is the only hope the galaxy has left.  
And she can't afford to see anything other than what is really there.

It's an awful way to have to live in such terrible times, of course. He knows because he's been blinded by black and white for so long and even that still hurts.  
So even though he could be angrier at his lost chance for revenge, Garrus lets the matter go.

She is right, after all.  
He can't live for revenge, in bitterness, forever. Especially not when there are darker things, worse dangers, just on the horizon.

"I need some distance from this place."

"I'm with you." she says.

The words are just a simple agreement.  
But he knows, in all things, that they are true.

That day, Garrus Vakarian learns that there are more ways than one to lay his ghosts to rest.

* * *

He thinks she's joking at first.  
They joke around a lot, you see.  
But then again, even amidst all their years of just shooting the breeze back and forth between missions, neither of them have ever even broached on the subject of...uh..._**this**_.

"We could test your reach...and my flexibility."

For a moment, he just stares at her wide-eyed, mandables flaring in shock.  
Then, he remembers himself and immediately clamps his open jaw shut, trying to mask his surprise as he answers.  
"Oh. I didn't...Huh. Never knew you had a weakness for men with scars...Well, why the hell not? There's nobody in this galaxy I respect more. And if we can figure out a way to make it work, then...yeah, definitely."  
He's rambling a little at this point, but he can't stop himself.

Him with a human? It's something he'd never even considered before today.  
And suddenly, his thoughts cloud with worry (about how-...about when-...) about _**what**_ 'being with a human' even means.

* * *

That's what they talk about the next time she comes around.  
"I know you can find something a little closer to home."  
"I don't want something closer to home. I want you. I want someone I can trust."

And it only hits him then, how true the words are for him, too.

* * *

When his armor comes off, for a moment, she doesn't move. There's a hesitance in the way she looks at him and Garrus knows how he must look; all awkward angles and juts and ridges. Ugly, to humans, especially ones who still keep the Contact Wars fresh in their minds.

"Shepard, I-" he begins to say, rubbing the back of is his neck uncertainly. If he were human, he might be blushing at the fact that he is standing in front of her, wearing nothing, and yet she has given no response. "if you're not...sure..."

But then, she tugs him close and brushes her lips against his mouth.

And he starts to smile because he knows what that means (thanks to all the vids he's been studying).

The night passes in a complete blur.  
Some of it is...strange.  
It'll take him more than once to adjust to feeling soft curves where he expects sharp angles and for her to adjust to kissing him and finding hard edges instead of soft lips.

Some of it is just plain awkward.  
They've been friends far longer than they've been lovers and in some of the things they do, the hesitant and uncertain way they touch each other for one, it shows.

But some of it- oh...  
Some of it is...**_good_**.

And Garrus spends so much of the night trying so hard to savor those moments that, ironically enough, in the end, he can hardly remember anything at all.  
And so, when it is all over and she is fast asleep beside him, he tries to memorize the way that she looks then instead.

A light sheen of sweat glistens on her pale, flushed skin.  
Some of her hair (and she has so _**much**_ hair) pools around her head as she slumbers.  
Her lips move slightly in her sleep as she breathes in and out, chest rising and falling evenly in time with her soft snores.

He's seen her this way, perspiring and with damp hair clinging to her neck and forehead, a hundred times before.  
After missions, after sparring, after running around on the Citadel for hours, hopelessly lost...

And still, this time is different.

And it's a sight he'd like to see again, if possible.

He hopes the odds are kind to both of them when they face the Collectors tomorrow.

* * *

They win.  
Of course they win.

But they lose, too.

Because after awhile, their commander is torn from them again.  
For working with Cerberus.

When the crew dissolves (a second time, for some) everybody tries to console themselves with thoughts of 'At least she's alive this time."

* * *

He doesn't get to talk to her after she leaves.

And it's almost like she's dead all over again, anyway. Especially when he hears about the attacks on Earth.

But soon enough, he has matters of his own to worry about and he throws himself into his work, avoiding any news because he can't bear it and yet all the while hoping and praying he'll overhear it from someone, somewhere anyway.

_Don't you dare die on me, Shepard,_ he thinks to himself when he doesn't.

* * *

When she comes to him, it is like starving his way through wartime rations and then finding a bar of perfect dextro-amino chocolate in his locker all for himself.

Not a particularly graceful or romantic sentiment, he knows, but...given Shepard's own experience of being trapped, once, at a diplomatic event with just Hanar and Volus and their versions of human food, he thinks she'd appreciate the metaphor.

* * *

On the definitive list of absolutely impossible things, she has done them all.

One. Cured the genophage.  
Two. Found a live Prothean.  
Three. Brokered peace between Turians and Krogans.  
Four. Brokered peace between Quarians and Geth.

And on the definitive list of unthinkable things regarding just Garrus Vakarian, she has done all of those things, too.

One. Fallen in love with him.  
Two. _**Stayed**_ in love with him.  
Three. Chosen him above all others.  
and, Four.

Left him behind.

They happen like this...

* * *

1\. Fallen in love with him.

In her time as a shut in, with no contact to the outside world, she finds her thoughts wandering to Garrus Vakarian more often than she'd like.  
But it isn't until the attacks happen and she leaves Earth and she actually sees him again that she realizes why.

"I'm on it Shepard. We'll find you the Primarch."  
"Garrus..."

And the overwhelming flood of relief, the flood of calm and grateful and confused, that knocks into her lungs the second he walks out of the shadows, almost renders her speechless.  
He is safe.  
He is safe and he is here and he is, once again, at her side.

"You're alive." she manages to say.  
He takes her hand in his.  
"I'm hard to kill." he answers.

A smile starts to break across her face.  
What can she say?  
It's true.

And thank the goddamned galaxy for that.

* * *

2\. Stayed in love with him

"...Or if you even still felt the same way about me..." he trails off uncertainly.  
And in that short moment of silence, he tries not to let his nerves show through the slow curling and uncurling of his talons, but it's difficult because he still isn't sure exactly what that night together, the one that had happened so long ago now, had even meant.  
All he knows is that he hopes it isn't what too many cheap vids have made him suspect.

"The scars are starting to fade. I remember they drove you wild."  
She laughs at that.

And so Garrus Vakarian begins to think that maybe, just maybe, all of it hadn't been what he was so afraid of, after all.

Before he can help it, the Turian finds himself stepping closer to her, the tone of his voice growing low and deep with affection.  
"But I can go out and get all new ones if it'll help." he says, half-jokingly.

She steps closer to him, too.

"I haven't forgotten our time together."

As if either of them ever could.

* * *

3\. Chosen him above all others.

Dealing with matters of the heart comes more easily to him now.  
And it shows, as he hops out of the skycar and reveals to her the most beautiful view she's seen in weeks.  
"It's incredible." she sighs.  
His voice is just slightly tinged with pride when he answers, "I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope it would inspire a certain...mood."  
And Shepard bites back a grin because she knows what's coming next.  
Garrus may be a damn good soldier, but with her, with this fragile thing between them that's finally begun to grow into something more, he's always been careful.  
"Something on your mind?"

"It seemed like you needed to time to...figure us out." he says. Then, more confidently, "Are you ready to be a one Turian kind of woman?"

Shepard knows that words are paltry things, but to her, now, they come surprisingly easily.  
Because she loves him.

And after she says as much, Garrus never finds cause to doubt it again._  
_

* * *

4\. Left him behind.

An eternity later.  
And now here they are.  
In the middle of the one big battle that will decide the fate of a galaxy.

But strange as it is, he feels good about their chances.

'And if i'm up there in that bar and you're not, i'll be looking down. You'll never be alone.' she had said.  
Odd to think that out of the two of them, she was now the one with the weary, emptiness in her eyes and the dulled edge in her voice.  
He can't help but be worried for her.

But predictably enough, it is he that fails her first.  
He gets injured.  
He gets **hurt** and Shepard loves him so she sends him away and tries to continue on by herself.

Into hell.  
All alone.

Despite everything he's tried to do to be there for her, to help her carry the burden, in the end, for the most important fight, she is...still alone.

And the truth of that hurts far worse than even the gaping wounds in his side.  
"We're in this till the end." he pleads.

She softens at that, even despite the nearby gunfire and the explosions and the chaos all around them.  
"No matter what happens here...you know I love you. I always will."  
The words are final.

"Shepard I...love you too." is all he can say.  
And that is the end of it.  
He's failed her.

But then, as she turns away, he catches a glimpse of that once bright fire in her eyes lighting just one more time.  
Her spine straightens, her shoulders roll back, she holds her head up high...  
And she walks willingly back into the fight.

And he remembers now how every time he's feared she wouldn't come back, she has.  
And so, even though he knows the dangers, this time, he has hope, he has faith that she will survive.

"Hey, she'll be alright, Garrus." Vega says, once Shepard is gone.  
"...I know." he answers.

And he believes it.

* * *

Garrus Vakarian looks down at the nameplate clenched between his talons and he grips it only tighter when that dead pang of emptiness and heartache that he'd been trying so hard to ignore finally settles in the core of his chest.

So much for blind hope. So much for faith.

Shepard is lost to him.  
And of course there are theories circulating about what happened, about where her body is, about why and how, exactly, she'd died.  
But all Garrus can think is, who knows who's really to blame? Who cares?

He takes a deep breath as he steps forward to attach the plate of metal to the Normandy's memorial wall.

But then, he gets flashes of a conversation he'd almost forgotten about entirely.

* * *

She stands there by herself, a lone human Spectre, overlooking the Normandy from inside the docking bay in silence.  
The lights are dim here, and the rest of the crew files back onboard, seemingly no bigger than mice through the glass. She watches as they laugh and talk amongst themselves...  
Freely. Happily.  
Because they have placed every last one of their hopes with her and somehow, they trust that she will come through.  
But she is just one person...

"So, I guess it's back to the fight?"  
Shepard glances up, startled by the sound of the voice, but it's just Garrus who settles himself beside her.  
She gives him a wry smile.  
"At least we threw one hell of a party..." she says. Then, more quietly. "Probably the last one."

And this is so unlike her that he can't help but study her carefully out of the corner of his eye.  
In retrosepct, that had probably been when she'd first started showing signs of the wear and the tear and the hopelessness. (Well, in front of him, anyway).  
And he'd always known that Shepard was a difficult person to convince.  
But even then, he'd tried.  
_  
_"That doesn't sound like my girl." Garrus says, as gently as he can. "You'll find a way to win. And when this is over, i'll be waiting for you."  
She doesn't say anything to that. But she thinks about it.  
And that is enough.  
He knows she's strong enough to pull herself back up again.

"Best times of my life were spent on that ship." Garrus continues. "Been a damn good ride."  
He gives her one last nudge on the shoulder before he leaves her to her thoughts.

"The best..." she says at last.

When Shepard is alone, the corners of her mouth start to quirk upward.

She knows that she'll make it through.  
That doesn't mean she doesn't need to be reminded of it every once in awhile, though.

And he is it.  
Her reminder.

When she runs to catch up with the rest of her crew, her allies, her best friends, the love of her life, her heart feels lighter than it's ever felt in a long, long time.

* * *

He is doing exactly what he'd told her not to.  
He is giving up.

And he can't do that to her, not after all she's done for the rest of them.

He doesn't know if it's that she's actually still out there somewhere and he can feel it in his gut, or if he's just pretending to keep from going mad with grief or if it's just stubborn denial, plain and simple.

But, all of a sudden, the nameplate clatters to the floor and the sound startles what remains of the crew to their senses.

Garrus Vakarian turns to face them.

And they blink back, mild expressions of concern mixed with surprise riddled across all of their faces.

But then, as he slowly passes his steady gaze from one crew member to the next, there is a sudden understanding between him and each one of them that is left.

The silence that begins to surround them is now altogether different from the one that had been hanging in the air just moments before.  
In this one, there is hope. And determination. And a will of steel.  
In this one, there is a readiness to step into hell all over again.

To find her.  
To find her no matter what the odds.

* * *

_"Shepard, sweetie, love of my life...Tell me you didn't..."_  
_She tries feigning ignorance first._  
_"Didn't what?" she says, blinking innocently._

_"You know what i'm talking about."_  
_He crosses his arms and gives her a pointed look, clearly not amused.  
_  
_"Okay, fine. I...uh...may or may not have...been...underselling my skills on purpose...because well, things and...stuff and reasons and I-" she says haltingly, but Garrus's gaze prompts her to cut it short. "-missed...theshotonpurpose." she mumbles all at once._  
_"'May have'?" Garrus asks, shooting her a look with his bright blue eyes. "You wound me, Shepard."_  
_"Hey, I was trying to boost your confidence." she insists indignantly._  
_"So you're saying you went easy on me."  
She begins to grin.  
"Maybe. But I can make it up to you, can't I?"_

_And she presses her lips against his mouth and she can feel his mandables flare and hear the low, soft trill of his subvocals._

_"Alright, now you're just playing dirty. I demand a rematch." Garrus pretends to sulk, but there is a low, soothing warmth to his tone._  
_And Shepard just smiles deviously._  
_"How about we skip right to the tie-breaker?"_

_"Oh, get a room you two!" Jack gripes.  
"I think they're adorable." Tali sighs.  
Jack just winces. "And while you're at it, take this one with you." she adds, gesturing to the now-flustered Quarian._

_Shepard and Garrus laugh together, but then, he is suddenly tugging her back towards the elevator on the sly because he plans to cherish every hard-earned minute that they have together. And right now, there are very particular ways in which Garrus wants to cherish those minutes._

_They are obviously on the same page._

_Because as soon as the doors slide shut, Shepard jumps into his arms and kisses him and he returns them with equal enthusiasm, one arm wrapped tightly around her waist.  
_  
_"I do...want a real rematch...some day, you know." Garrus murmurs to her between kisses._  
_She tilts her head back as she laughs._  
_"You're not going to be sore about this forever, are you, Vakarian?"  
"Well, that depends." Garrus answers._

_And the elevator continues its swift descent as they bicker back and forth, his banter playing off of hers in a practiced, familiar rhythm._  
_She makes no further apologies._  
_And he may gripe about it, b__ut he doesn't mind. Not really._

_Because she had died and lived and died again._  
_But in the end, she came back._

_She came back to him._  
_And that is all that matters._

* * *

_fin~_


End file.
